THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 87 



note also, that both in this, and all other months of the year, 

 wlien you do not certainly know what fly is taken, or cannot 

 see any fish to rise, you are then to put on a small hackle, if 

 the water be clear, or a bigger, if something dark, until you 

 have taken one ; and then thrusting your finger through his 

 gills, to pull out his gorge, which being opened with your 

 knife, you will then discover what fly is taken, and may fit your- 

 self accordingly. 



For the making of a hackle, or palmer-fly, my father Walton 

 has already given you sufficient direction. 



MARCH. 



For this month you are to use all the same hackles and 

 flies with the other, but you are to make them less. 



1. We have besides for this month a little dun, called a 

 whirling dun, tliough it is not the whirling dun indeed, which is 

 one of the best flies we have ; and for this the dubbing must be 

 of the bottom fur of a squirrel's tail, and the wing of the grey 

 feather of a drake. 



2. Also a brijjht brown, the dubbino^ either of the brown of a 

 spaniel, or that of a cow's flank, with a grey wing. 



3. Also a whitish dun, made of the roots of camel's hair, and 

 the wings of the grey feather of a mallard. 



4. There is also for this month a fly, called the thorn-tree fly ; 

 the dubbing an absolute black mixed with eight or ten hairs of 

 Isabella-colored mohair,* the body as little as can be made, and 



* Isabella, Spezie di colore che partecipa del bianco e di giallo. Al- 

 tierPs Dictionary. A kind of whitish yellow, or as some say, a buff color 

 a little soiled. 



How it came by this name will appear from the following anecdote, for 

 which I am obliged to a very ingenious and learned lady. The Archduke 

 Albertus, who had married the Infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II. of 

 Spain, with whom he had the Low Countries in dowry, in the year 1602, 

 having determined to lay siege to Ostend, then in the posse-ssion of the 

 heretics, his pious princess, who attended him in that expedition, made 

 a vow, that until it was taken, she would not change her clothes. Con- 

 trary to expectation, as the story says, it was three years before the place 

 was reduced, in which time her highness's linen had acquired the above 

 mentioned hue. — Hawkins. 



